April 10, 2022

The war in Ukraine: Nuclear power, weapons and winter

Six weeks intoRussia’s invasion of Ukraine, the death and destruction has been devastating. In addition, thetargeting of nuclear power plantsby Russia’s military has raised the spectre of a nuclear disaster.

March 28, 2018

CAVAN HOGUE. What Australian interests are involved in the Skripal poisoning?

By signing up to sanctions against Russia along with 22 European and North American countries Australia has made it very clear to the 100 countries that did not sign up where we think we belong. We seem to be telling our Asian neighbours that Dr Mahathir was right to say that Australia is a European outpost in Asia. We prefer NATO to ASEAN? NATO has rushed to judgement without waiting for all the information to come in. Certainly, Russia has to be the prime suspect but there are many unanswered questions about the whole matter. Putin is capable of ordering the murder if he felt it was in his interests and Russia has the capability to do it but does it follow that they did? We dont know one way or the other. After Iraq, British intelligence cannot be guaranteed to be right and so far we have not seen a smoking gun.

March 16, 2018

NANDINI PANDEY. Romes Empire Without End and the Endless U.S. War on Terror (Replaying the Roman Civil Wars in Reverse Since 9/11)

That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

May 6, 2022

Who is the autocrat?

Autocracy: a system of government by one person with absolute power.

February 6, 2020

KISHORE MAHBUBANI. The Year Ahead 2020(Project Syndicate 26.12.2019)

_The international order has lagged dangerously behind shifting global power dynamics. If leaders do not start addressing the contradictions soon, the most likely result is crisis or even conflict and even more dangerous contradictions.

August 8, 2020

Indian Australians: supporting Black Lives Matter will make us feel we belong

_In The American Bazaar on 20-07-20 Revathi Siva Kumar asks: Have the people from the land of Mahatma Gandhi done enough for the oppressed African Americans? How many of them stood in solidarity with the protesters against police brutality and racism?

May 3, 2022

'New cold war' in the South Pacific exposed

Having preened on the global stage for standing up to Beijing, the Morrison government has now been shown to have little influence in the region most crucial to our security.

June 9, 2024

Australia's handling of the war in Gaza

A catastrophe is unfolding in Gaza right now – with terrible ramifications for Australia. It’s an issue no citizen of this country can ignore.

December 14, 2020

After two decades, the national electricity market is on its way out, and thats alright (Dec 10, 2020)

It has been more than 20 years in the making, but there is now a new order in Australias grandest (and most problematic) example of cooperative federalism: theNational Electricity Market.

July 5, 2021

Rehabilitating Rumsfeld, Erasing Empire: On All Those U.S. War Crimes in Iraq

Nearly twenty years out from the U.S. invasion of Iraq, its much more comforting to continue nursing establishment narratives about the war that emphasize it as a failed or bungled effort as costly mistake of the past.

February 25, 2020

FRANCIS SULLIVAN. New Wine, New Wine Skins.

_Why it is worth staying active in the Church?

June 22, 2022

The value of the Federal Administrative Appeals Tribunal and the worth of its non-legal members

The Federal Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) serves an important role for the citizens of Australia. Its value and the work of its members including its non-legal members need to be more widely appreciated and supported.

June 17, 2022

KEITH MITCHELSON: Media advocacy for tax-avoiding, transnational behemoths the international fossil-fuel companies

_The web of international trade has been lauded for a century as a positive binding force connecting nations, making the world a safer place. Who would think it could also do the opposite.

July 3, 2018

GARY YOUNGE. Donald Trumps enforcers have lost the right to civil courtesy.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders ejection from the Red Hen restaurant might ordinarily be dubious. But these are no ordinary times.

July 12, 2018

BHIM BHURTEL. Indias myopic muscular neighborhood policy (Asia Times 2/7/2018)

Despite one muscular diplomatic debacle after another, India has been unrelenting in its bullying attitude toward its small and weak neighbors. India is imposinganother economic blockadeon a third South Asian country, Maldives.

May 30, 2022

Stern and Stiglitz: The chaotic world of 2 degrees warming

Most of us will feel confident the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes clutch of recent reports has now delivered a globally dependable well researched path to carbon neutrality. After all its the product of thousands of the worlds scientific experts.

June 26, 2021

Archival documents reveal British H bomb was developed in Australia despite denials

Documents found in the National Archives reveal previously ignored proof that promises made by the UK not to test thermonuclear weapons in Australia were broken.

June 13, 2021

Since you're not using the Crown, Prime Minister

The presumption that the federal government will act fairly can be traced to the Crown, but the federal government is now undermining it.

April 22, 2021

AWM needs lessons in democracy

While fine and solemn words about our democratic values and freedoms will be uttered from the Australian War Memorial (AWM) on Anzac Day, behind the scenes the institution is engaging in processes that treat with contempt our right to help shape the important decisions that affect us all.

June 4, 2022

Beth Doherty-Recovering the True Church - Book Review

One of the great chants of Latin American protest marches, is the phrase: El pueblo unido jamas ser vencido, meaning: a united people will never be overcome.

April 30, 2022

Political appointments and downgrading the Australian Human Rights Commission

The international standards body on human rights has found that the Australian Human Rights Commission should be downgraded in its standing.

July 2, 2022

The Hong Kong diaries: Patten revives colonialism, trying to attract interest

Although the United Kingdom traditionally regarded Hong Kong as a colony, this changed over time.

June 10, 2021

Why the Western narrative of Chinas debt trap diplomacy is another big lie

To work well, the lie must be introduced early, repeated often and insulated from contradiction by a narrative of fake news and accusations of witch hunts.

April 3, 2021

Should pleasure from illicit drugs be included in consideration of drug policy?

In recent decades, the notion that law enforcement approaches to illicit drugs has failed, moved from heresy to orthodoxy. But drug policy till now has only been considered as the prevention of harm. Its time for policymakers and the community to accept that the pursuit of pleasure should also be a consideration. A distinguished US Professor of Psychology has written a new book discussing his pleasure from using currently illicit drugs.

November 28, 2018

JOAN STAPLES: An Australian civil society success story.

Almost twelve months ago, I first wrote of threats to democratic advocacy from three foreign interference Bills. On Tuesday this week, the final most controversial Bill, the Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform Bill, was passed with the support of civil society. The story of this transformation from horrified opposition to support for the Bill is a story of Australian civil society working together to influence legislation in a way rarely seen. It opens the way for future collaboration to proactively promote the strengthening of our democracy.

January 16, 2020

DAVID BENTLEY HART. The Enchantments of Mammon (A book review)

Capitalism is the coldest and most stupefying of idolatries: a faith that has forsaken the sacral understanding of creation as something charged with Gods grandeur, flowing from the inexhaustible wellsprings of Gods charity, in favor of an entirely opposed order of sacred attachments

July 6, 2018

GREG HAMILTON. The New Art Of Looking The Other Way.

We have a Law Reform Commission thats impotent, as well as a Commission for Human Rights that has no impact on the lack of rights of Australians. Is that accidentalor intended? Is there a chance for any sort of reform in this country before it slips up its own shirt-tails into eternal darkness and intestinal rumblings?

November 4, 2020

Where to send granny? Bringing the last generation back into total society

There used to be five. Two have died in the past year, so with just three using wheelchairs and walking frames the street looks less like an archipelagic version of what Australia used to call nursing homes. That was before Covid-19 and realising the term was a lie.

March 9, 2020

MICHELLE PETERIE.-The human cost of forced relocation of immigration detainees.(The Conversation 2.3.2020)

_The practice of moving detainees around Australias immigration detention network is doubly unjustifiable on economic and humanitarian grounds.

April 27, 2022

A negotiated peace is the only way to end Russia's war on Ukraine

There is only one answer to the war in Ukraine: a peace deal.

October 24, 2020

Pope Francis's rejection of 'neoliberal' economics

The new social encyclical of Pope Francis is a cry for those oppressed by poverty, hunger and exclusion, protesting against the injustice in a world with so much wealth. Not surprisingly Francis drew from the parable of the Good Samaritan: will we remain indifferent and pass by, or take the global situation seriously?

April 4, 2019

YELENA BIBERMAN, JARED SCHWARTZ. Pakistan is ready for stability in Afghanistan (East Asia Forum).

The Afghan government has an unexpectedly ardent advocate in current peace negotiations between the United States and TalibanPakistan. This surprising supporter has been providing sanctuary to the Taliban, thereby placing a pricey bet on its alleged proxys recapture of Afghanistan following a US withdrawal. The Talibans refusal to negotiate with the government in Kabul is a major obstacle to the peace process. But Pakistan is now pressuring the Taliban to meet with Afghan officials.

April 22, 2021

Progress on Australia-EU-UK trade talks

Dan Tehan may well come to regret the timing of his swing through Europe to try and reignite interest in trade deals between Australia and the European Union and the United Kingdom. There has seldom been a week in April when the political agenda right across Europe is so full of events and crises of various shapes and sizes, demanding the attention of the European Commission, which has responsibility for trade in the 27 nation Union, and individual leaders.

November 28, 2020

Israel calls them 'illegals' in their own land whilst our media ignores this flagrant human rights abuse.

The dehumanization begins with the blind adoption of the concepts dictated by the defense establishment: Shabahim, for example, an IDF acronym for human beings, literally illegal transients and used only for Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank who cross into and stay in Israel for hours or days, without a permit.

November 28, 2018

LESLEY RUSSELL: Time to make dental care an election issue

The Victorian Governments election commitment to a $395.8 million program to provide free dental care to schoolchildren will be welcome in a state where affordable and timely access to dental care is increasingly difficult. Its time for a concerted campaign to ensure that improved access to dental care and better prevention initiatives are on the agenda for the upcoming New South Wales and federal elections. Governments must be persuaded that their failure to see oral health, dental services and caries prevention as essential components of health care is a false economy.

September 3, 2022

Jon Richardson: NATO and Ukraine: once more into the breach

Professor Graeme Gill has written a detailed response to my own article in P and I on NATO and the origins of war in Ukraine. I argued the latter were to be found in Russias post-imperial angst and domestic authoritarianism rather than in any threat presented by NATO expansion or Western policies.

March 2, 2020

HANAN ASHRAWI. Hollow international statements have enabled Israel to deal a final blow to the two -state formula.(PLO 25.2,2020)

_The Trump Administration continues to undermine the international order, ignores the Israeli sledgehammer, and protects Israeli impunity.

April 27, 2021

Debunking misinformation and climate change

It might be surprising given the scale of the problem, but there is an emerging consensus about the current status of the science of misinformation and its debunking in respect to climate change.

September 5, 2022

Protecting American democracy is the most important battle of our lifetimes

_The essential political choice in America is no longer Republican or Democrat, right or left, conservative or liberal. It is democracy or authoritarian fascism.

August 3, 2022

International politics is discussed so often in terms only of great power rivalry

Western countries are not the only actors, other countries can focus their resources and diplomatic priorities on addressing the real global challenges

January 24, 2019

ANDREW GLIKSON -The roots of the climate catastrophe

It is not a mere coincidence that extreme right wing movements reject the scientific evidence for anthropogenic climate change, which reflects their connections with the fossil fuel corporations from whom they receive funding, as well as a lack of concern for the living world. In the wake of Benito Mussolinis adoption of fasces (a Roman symbol consisting of a bundle of birch rods enveloping an axe) as a symbol of his movement, the term fascism, for which there is no precise synonym in the English language**,** acquired universal consequence (__). Although the Nazis were beaten in WWII, a plethora of partiesincluding neo-Nazis, characterized by violence, defense of the rich and hate of colored-skin people, immigrants, minorities, Jews, socialists, intellectuals and scientistsis rising around the world.

June 24, 2022

It is critical that the housing bubble is safely deflated

Stratospheric housing prices are perhaps the most critical domestic issue in Australia. Not only are a collapse of the housing bubble and a recession now threatening, but homelessness and rent stress, unaddressed and exploited, can quickly fester into ugly politics.

June 14, 2022

The US / China blame-game

All wars are avoidable, not just the war in Ukraine, but a future war with China too. Most of Australias wars have been unnecessary, as historian Henry Reynolds has shown. A war with China would be both: avoidable and unnecessary. It would be more catastrophic for Australia than any we have fought.

November 28, 2018

MICHAEL MULLINS. Why I avoid social media news feeds

Facebook and the like are not interested in truth in journalism. They use their algorithms to create news that confirms their users’ pre-existing views. If they gave them content with views they didn’t like, chances are that the users would ditch the feed for a rival and revenues would drop.

April 27, 2022

Jessica Corbett: Chomsky on Biden calling Putin a war criminal: 'Takes one to know one'

The dissident says that while outraged by Russia’s war on Ukraine, much of the rest of the world is reacting to U.S. condemnation by asking, “Why should we get involved in your hypocrisy?”

March 21, 2024

Restoring appropriate equilibrium between our two countries

This morning I had a one hour five minute meeting with the Chinese Foreign Minister Mr Wang Yi.

June 3, 2022

Myanmar on the brink the Australian Government should lower its vision

The crisis in Myanmar may rapidly worsen with the military rulers this week rationing fuel to about 15% of normal supplies. The announcement comes after months of denials that civil war, sanctions and loss of foreign currency are impacting basic necessities.

May 31, 2022

Good values, bad values and common values

In the wake of Stephen Fitzgeralds thought provoking article Getting the Australia-China Relationship back on track which mentioned our new Prime Minister speaking in a megaphone manner in Tokyo of Australian values, this is perhaps a good time to talk about values.

March 25, 2020

GAVIN A O'BRIEN.-Why I remain a Catholic.

_I am being challenged to consider and discern why I remain a Catholic in a Church whose membership is declining and ageing;whose clergy are decreasing in numbers and ageing,where many Catholics, particularly our children, are no longer attending Mass and accessing the Sacraments.Where do we go from here?

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal